Below, Quaker evinces skepticism about my previous post on the sincerity of those who say that "abortion is murder".

Since I seem to be slightly misunderstood, I'll try to restate my basic outlook. "Murder" is both a legal and a moral category, and the two categories are not precisely contiguous. Most of us understand the word "murder" to make sense even in a society without a rule of law.

Not all murders are treated the same by any legal regime. Genocides in Rwanda, in-cold-blood killings by those who have since reformed or become mentally disabled, terrorist attacks, and robberies-gone-wrong all lead to different criminal consequences in our justice system. So there is no platonic one-true-way that all murders are punished, and no way to argue that because a given law would treat a given killing differently than we treat some murders, that the law (and those who support it) must not "really" regard that killing as a moral murder.

Even those who believe abortion to murder are likely to acknowledge that it raises different moral issues and possibly different moral compromises than many other kinds of murder. That means different outcomes on the criminal side, and there's nothing suspicious about that.

Which brings me to Quaker's final point, that failing to punish women who seek abortion is implicit or explicit sexism and a failure to count women as moral agents. I just don't see why that's so. If one decides (as I do not mean to decide) that abortion is something evil people turn to in desperation and for which a certain degree of mercy should still apply, I don't see why that implies that one treats the desperate person as anything less than a person. The old saw about hating sins but not sinners comes to mind.

So just as some executives grant clemency to some murderers, and some juries acquit some obviously guilty defendants, and the law itself often takes into account mitigating circumstances, there seems to me nothing suspicious about those who wish to harshly punish providers of abortion but not to punish those who seek them out.

I reiterate-- one might well think that such laws are wrong. I certainly do. But that seems relatively unrelated to the question of the sincerity of those who defend them.

I have met with my S.A.W. advisor a second time, this time armed with an outline that was not fatally "shaggy". Securing his approval means that now I can "merely" write and research.

On the other hand, I'm still searching for summer lodging. So, thanks in advance to any readers with leads. Once that weight's off my shoulders, who knows what I'll do with myself.

I like granola. But oddly enough, I cannot actually remember any particular brand or source of granola that I actually like. There must have been some original paradigm case of granola, but my recent attempts to find it again have been deeply frustrating. Store-bought and even most boutique-y granolas are too sweet or too full of extraneous flavors or (yuck) coconut.

Finally fed up, I made my own tonight. I had hoped that it would be delicious (which it is) but I had not quite been prepated for it to be so gorgeous. Dark browns mottled to light tans, specked with bright red fruit, etc. It really is startling to be able to turn that out of things that don't even seem like real food.

At any rate, the recipe:

Put 6 cups rolled oats in an oven-safe skillet over medium high heat, and stir until they darken and you can smell them. Then add 2 cups chopped nuts-- I used one cup walnuts and one cup cashews, but will go heavier on the cashews next time. Stir for another few minutes. Add one teaspoon of cinammon, a dash of salt, and a little over half a cup of honey. Stir the mixture until the honey coats all of the grains, then slide the skillet into the oven (preheated to 300 degrees) for about 20-30 minutes, stirring two or three times. The mixture should look and feel ready to eat. Take it out, add a cup of dried fruit (I used half cranberries and half cherries but will go heavier on the cranberries next time) and stir a bit as mixture cools. Devour, preferably with plain organic fat-free yogurt.

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